The memorial arrangement of the former Jewish cemetery in Prostějov will be processed by Atelier 38

Prostějov - The proposal for a memorial layout of the former Jewish cemetery in Prostějov, where a parking lot and a park are currently located, will be prepared for the city hall by the Ostrava-based company Atelier 38 for approximately 560,000 crowns. The study should be completed by the middle of this year. The Czech Press Agency received this information from the public procurement database today. The former Jewish cemetery in Prostějov, which the Ministry of Culture listed as a cultural monument in 2016, was destroyed during the German occupation. At that time, local residents from surrounding villages took the tombstones with Jewish inscriptions and used them to pave their yards, for example.

The company Atelier 28 will create architectural solutions for the memorial layout of the former Jewish cemetery space and the adjacent public areas for the city hall. The contract will include visualizations as well as a proposal for the implementation of the modifications. "This primarily concerns public green spaces on Studentská Street, the entrance atrium to the Real Gymnasium building and O. Wichterl's elementary school, and the area of the adjacent parking lot and related areas," states the announcement of the public procurement.

The city plans to abolish the parking lot and build a new parking area for cars as part of the memorial layout of the former Jewish cemetery. A road to the sports facility behind the school is also to be constructed. Access for emergency services to the school will be possible outside the area of the old Jewish cemetery.

In 2019, after several years of discussions, the city hall reached an agreement on the memorial layout of the old Jewish cemetery with the Kolel Damesek Eliezer foundation, the Hanácký Jeruzalém association, and the Federation of Jewish Communities. The old Jewish cemetery in Prostějov was established in 1801 and was dismantled in 1943 at the behest of the German mayor. Notable figures buried in the dismantled cemetery include the ancestors of philosopher Edmund Husserl and writer Stefan Zweig.

The Kolel Damesek Eliezer foundation has been trying to enhance the site of the former cemetery for an extended period, but could not come to an agreement with the city hall on the form of the memorial layout for a long time. In the meantime, the dispute has been covered by international media and was included in the regular report by the U.S. Department of State, which focuses on human rights protection worldwide. The Holocaust Museum in Washington recently expressed interest in the tombstones from the destroyed cemetery that were found in Prostějov and its surroundings, thanks to the efforts of the foundation.